


survival for her sake

by aizensosuke



Series: the dreamers and the lovers [11]
Category: Bleach
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Established Relationship, F/F, F/M, Father-Daughter Relationship, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Introspection, Male-Female Friendship, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-20
Updated: 2019-01-20
Packaged: 2019-10-13 02:49:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,004
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17479787
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aizensosuke/pseuds/aizensosuke
Summary: starrk reflects on his relationship with his daughter to halibel.





	survival for her sake

This close to the mouth of the cave, the roaring wind is impossible to ignore.

Coyote Starrk remembers the last blizzard, the one he was caught in the middle of, body folded protectively over that of his daughter to keep her safe from the cold and the chill. He could no longer feel anything except her huddled at his side, a warm little ball of fur pressed as close to him as possible. The memory is not a pleasant one; he splays a hand against the side of the cave and stares outside, the snow collecting in large drifts but kept away from their home by some magic of Gin’s.

The quiet is companionable. Before joining this pack, Starrk had been alone for years, ever since he walked out of his pack determined to give his daughter a better life than she could have had there. He was lucky, in that retrospect. Some packs made it difficult to leave, and his tried. They just underestimated how badly he wanted to leave.

He still remembers the corpse of the alpha slumping off of him, spilling blood that soaked into the dirt, turning the brown into a rich and wet black as he shifted easily back to his human shape. No one expected a beta to be strong enough to win. No one expected a pregnant werewolf to be a challenge, but no one ever gave him enough credit. When it came to Lilynette, no one could predict how hard Starrk would fight for her.

She was his everything even before her birth, when she was nothing but a reassuring weight inside of him, a change in his own natural scent. She was the hope he had in the world given life once again when it was extinguished long ago, proof there was good left in this universe. She was his strength and his solace.

“What are you doing here, Starrk?” The voice is low and soft; Aizen’s. “Halibel said you asked her to look after Lily. You’re not going out in that, are you?”

“Just remembering, Aizen-sama.” Remembering when the snow and the ice and the wind had stopped, buffeted aside easily by Gin’s impossible magic and power.

It was the dead of winter when Aizen found Starrk and offered him a home and a pack, a chance to have something of a life with his daughter. The house underground had not been yet taken, but they had a different shelter then, and food, and Starrk would have done anything to give Lilynette a better life. Working alongside an omega who only wanted to purge the world of the hunters who tried to murder their kind was a bonus; Starrk could easily walk into that life without turning back and never regret it. How could he? Making the world a safer place for his daughter to grow up is his priority.

“It wasn’t so long ago,” Aizen muses, his hand gentle as it comes to rest on top of Starrk’s shoulder. An omega who ensured his exile from his own pack, Aizen was an oasis in a desert of loneliness, offering Starrk a pack when he thought the notion was gone forever. “She’s grown so fast, hasn’t she? Your Lilynette. She’s like a flower in the spring.”

Starrk nods. “She has. Guess that’s what happens when you have regular food and a place to sleep without having to worry about getting up and running at a moment’s notice.”

“Living on your own isn’t easy,” Aizen says, and Starrk knows he has experience. Had been on his own with Gin and Tousen, a tiny army against the world, before forming this pack. And even then, growth was slow. “But you aren’t on your own anymore. You’re with us.”

“That’s true,” Starrk muses, glancing over his shoulder in Aizen’s direction.

He knows precious little about Aizen as a person, only that he masqueraded as an alpha in his old pack for reasons Starrk is still not sure he understands, though he does so in a more natural sense of the world. Most werewolves who meet him and see him with Lilynette mistake him for an omega; he supposes his natural scent is sweet enough to trick them, though he’s never tried such a thing on purpose. All he cares about is Lilynette; nothing else has such importance in his life. Having another mate is a joke considering how poorly his life ended up with the last person he dared to consider more than a friend.

Aizen looks like an omega, so Starrk wonders how he hid the truth. Soft features, warm eyes, soft skin. Body gently curving in certain places; he fits the bill better than someone like Nnoitra, all hard angles and vitriol, or Grimmjow, heavy muscles and snarking attitude. Better than Ulquiorra and that face that never seems to adopt a true expression, stoic and relaxed, features never quite slipping into a frown or a smile.

When Aizen steps into his personal space, Starrk lets him. Tilts his head down to butt his forehead against Aizen’s shoulder even as Aizen’s cheek presses into his shoulder. The close contact is a hallmark of most packs whose members don’t hate each other. Which is to say, Starrk is still getting used to being a part of it.

“I was concerned you’d gotten an idea to go out in the snow. I don’t know why.” Aizen’s fingers curl around his arm, squeezing gently. “The weather is so terrible.”

“Are we going to be fine, snowed into the cave?” Starrk asks him.

He can feel the nod against his shoulder. “Yes, we have plenty of food stored away especially after the hunters attacked us. The alphas were very moved by the injury of an omega, and restless, so I sent them out hunting for very long periods of time.”

“Hell of a thing to be worried about,” Starrk says. “Nothing can kill Nnoitra.”

“I suppose that must be true,” Aizen says, and there is amusement in his voice.

Starrk is satisfied with remembering the past and follows Aizen back through the entryway tunnel, feeling the warmth of the fire before they reach the common room. The time is still late afternoon into early evening, and with nothing to do, almost everyone has gathered here to spend the time with each other rather than hiding away in their own dens. Ulquiorra and Yammy are the exception; Ulquiorra’s heat picked up right before the blizzard began, and Gin scent-sealed their room at their request.

A small head of pale golden hair swivels in his direction and Starrk is crouched down with his arms open a moment before Lilynette throws herself at him. Four years old now and quite tall for her age, all gangly limbs that she wraps around him in greeting. Her eyes— the same impossible shade as a pale rose— meet his own as she smiles up at him.

“Where did you go, Tousan?” she asks him, wrapping her fingers up in his hair.

“Just to look at the snow. It’s nasty out here.” Starrk presses his nose into her hair, inhaling her scent as he lowers himself down in front of the fire. “Were you good?”

“She was excellent,” Halibel reassures him from her position.

Lilynette leans back to look up at him, and Starrk lets her. Born an alpha, her protective nature has nothing to settle on. Cubs naturally try to protect and herd one another, and if there were more children here, she would probably be trying to protect them and take care of them. So her attention turned to him instead; she’s put herself between him and danger, baring her teeth in snarls while he picks her up and puts her behind him. After all, if anyone is going to fight, it really ought to be him.

Most real threats they face could bat her aside easily.

“I was just looking at the snow,” Starrk reassures her, sitting down next to Halibel.

Lilynette frowns and presses her face against the front of his throat. “It’s cold outside,” she says, and he nods because it’s true. “You have to stay inside, Tousan.”

“I will,” he tells her, and Lilynette curls up in his lap, content with his answer.

A hand on the back of his neck has his gaze rising from his daughter to find Halibel’s blue-green eyes fixed on his own, her expression thoughtful. “Aizen-sama seemed concerned when I told him that you wanted a moment alone. Are you well?”

“I’m fine. I just needed a moment to remember how far we’ve come since the last blizzard.” Halibel had been with the pack then, but Grimmjow came later, that much Starrk remembers. Halibel and Nelliel were as eternal as the sun and the moon in the sky.

Halibel’s expression does not waver. “You didn’t go out in that, did you?”

“Of course not. I know better.” Starrk knows her concern is well-placed; he might have wandered out into it for a moment if Lilynette was not here. To an extent, even with a pack and friends who care about him, Starrk has always been something of a wanderer.

Smiling softly, Halibel nods, leaning against the stack of pillows behind her. “That’s good.”

Starrk glances at the scene just beyond her, Grimmjow’s shock of blue hair resting on her thigh as he sleeps on her lap, eyes shut. Nelliel’s turquoise hair is just below him, her face pressed against his stomach, her arms wrapped around him and her legs tangled with his. The three of them make quite a pretty picture together, though Nelliel’s position gives Starrk a moment’s pause before his gaze rises to Halibel’s in question.

“Yes,” she answers, and he can’t help a little smirk at the tone of her voice. “Twins.”

“Congratulations. Kittens, you think?” Starrk asks, leaning back to let Lilynette lie on top of his chest, her warmth and closeness a welcome weight.

Halibel tilts her head back, gazing up at the ceiling. “I’d like that,” she says, her fingers running through Grimmjow’s hair until he purrs softly, a deep rumble that starts in his chest. “Little kittens with Nel’s big hazel eyes. That’d suit me. Can I ask you something?”

Starrk, who’d been about to drift off, forces himself to remain awake. “What is it?”

“What’s it like, taking care of a baby?” Halibel’s eyes dart down to Lilynette; she’d met Lily when she was three years old, after all. None of them but Starrk had known her before that moment. “None of the pack have settled down yet, so I wonder.”

On the verge of asking her what the hell her own pack had been doing that Halibel has no experience whatsoever, Starrk stops himself. Halibel had no pack before Aizen’s pack. She was an orphan, raised in a human orphanage, and escaped before she could start bouncing around the foster care system. Had grown up on her own and met her own little pack when she was a teenager. Her story was a sad one, and she’d only mentioned it once or twice.

“It’s hard,” Starrk admits, rubbing a hand up and down Lilynette’s back. “I’m not gonna lie to you, Hal. They’ll cry and you won’t know why. Everything you do isn’t gonna make it stop. You’re gonna be paranoid as hell once they learn to walk ‘cause what if they fall? Or run into something? You’re gonna start running into shit yourself watching them.”

Halibel laughs softly, a rich velvety sound. “I can’t imagine you like that at all.”

“I was raising her outside, can you imagine that? Turn my back for five seconds and she tries to eat a pinecone.” Starrk winces, remembering the porcupine she tried to fight.

The fact she  _ won _ would be a pride point if she could remember it at all.

“You ever have any regrets, though?” Halibel asks him, and Starrk snorts.

“As if I could. She’s my whole world. I’d give up everything for her and more if I could.” Starrk kisses the top of her head and Lilynette makes a vague noise at him; she’s fallen asleep this close to him, safe and warm with him near. “I remember when she was born. It was fucking hard. I did it in wolf form because doing it in human form would have left me vulnerable as hell, and I mean, it still hurt. But I could move after.”

Halibel winces. “I didn’t know about that. I don’t think you’ve mentioned it before now.”

“Haven’t. It’s not a pretty story. None of it is, but it’s our story.” He’d written it for her, ripping out all the pages that came before the two of them. His past would not lie heavy on her shoulders; her future would be as bright as any could be. “She was born in wolf form, which made her easier to take care of for a while. Don’t think she even realized she had a real human form in her until she saw me change for the first time.”

“Most pups are born safely in packs and with their parents in human form, so she probably didn’t,” Halibel agrees. “Was that fine, helping her turn for the first time?”

“I did it during the full moon to make sure she’d have help.” There was no real science to connect shapeshifting and the full moon unlike what humans felt, but there was something wild and free about full moons that made shifting feel easier and more natural, and Lilynette was no different in that respect. “She couldn’t walk very well at that age, not really, and I think it annoyed her. But she liked being held. I didn’t want to set her down.”

Most parents knew what holding their child felt like the moment they were born, but Starrk couldn’t risk anything like that until he was sure they were safe, and it took a long time before  _ safe _ felt like a reality and not a notion. He still remembers picking her up for the first time, then one year old and already growing fast. Remembers the way her small hands felt when they touched his face, the way she looked up at him with her human eyes; he’d been her world, even then. The center of the universe to a child.

He hadn’t been able to put her down for hours. When the sun finally rose and they had to return to their wolf forms just to be able to travel, he regretted a lot of things. Regretted not having a safe home for her where he could hold her more often, regretted not doing better for her. He can lay some of those regrets to rest now, though. Lilynette is safe and warm and alive, and she has him right here when she needs him.

And they have a home, and that is something Starrk can at least say he could give her.

Halibel’s gaze is soft when Starrk glances up at her once more, as if she was able to pick up the run of his thoughts without him saying a word. “She’s lucky,” she says, and Starrk raises an eyebrow at her. “Lilynette is lucky to have a father who loves her so much.”

“She might as well get one if she can’t have both.” Starrk shrugs; parents are  _ supposed _ to love their kids. The ones who don’t shouldn’t have kids in the first place.

“Your ex-mate?” Halibel asks, and Starrk makes a noise. “You’ve mentioned him once.”

“He’s dead. Not much to mention.” Starrk’s arms curl around Lilynette protectively, ruminating on the past once more. “He didn’t want her and  I did. He shouldn’t have made it my problem ‘cause I made it his. Pack let me walk away after that.”

Halibel’s voice is low, gentle. “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize something like that happened.”

“It’s fine. Was what it was, and I survived. Got the best thing out of it, too.” That’s one thing Starrk doesn’t regret. The bastard who laid hands on him, intent on beating the child out of him if he wouldn’t get the abortion, dead on the ground in front of him. Self-preservation on his own behalf, and that of his unborn child. Betas didn’t have the same luck as omegas when it came to getting pregnant, and Starrk wouldn’t risk it. “If he didn’t want her, he didn’t deserve to get to live long enough to meet her.”

The hand that drops onto his shoulder is warm. “I’m sorry you had such a difficult life, though it seems to be the regular thing around this pack. Everyone suffered.”

“Suffering can make you stronger if you can survive it.” And they had, both of them. “I don’t mind it too much. She didn’t suffer, and that’s all I really care about in the end.”

Halibel smiles and nods, and Starrk lets his eyes drift shut just to haul them open a moment later, scrounging around for a blanket to wrap around his pup before he tries to nap properly. Lilynette yawns and then curls tighter against his chest, one hand curling loosely against his front, the other wrapped around his neck to keep him close to her. Starrk rumbles softly down at her and Lilynette makes a soft noise in answer even in her sleep, always aware when he’s close, always aware of when he’s close to her.

Starrk lets himself relax in this space, surrounded by a pack he can trust and people who care about his daughter enough to watch over her when he can’t be near. Lilynette sleeps deeply, her back rising and falling with her steady breaths, the occasional soft snore slipping through before she curls against him once more. And Starrk smiles and holds her close, finally content that they have a home, and that his daughter is safe. Nothing and no one could ever mean as much to him as she does right now, just the way it should be.

**Author's Note:**

> big happy birthday to the best father-daughter duo in bleach. their relationship was so beautiful.


End file.
